


Hollow

by OrionRedde, Shyrstyne



Series: Cometverse [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Werecreatures, Backstory, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, Nonbinary Character, POV Second Person, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 02:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17879438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionRedde/pseuds/OrionRedde, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shyrstyne/pseuds/Shyrstyne
Summary: You spend nine years on a world that only exists when it's made up of the broken pieces of other worlds. How did you get there anyways?





	Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> Should I have started with something lighter? probably. Did I? no.  
> This is the Fall of Radiant Garden, and a brief overview of the next nine years for Comet and their family.

Your name is Comet, you are fourteen years old, and your world is falling apart.

You’re not entirely sure when it started, and you certainly don’t know where, but the very shadows have become malicious, and they rise from the ground to swarm and attack people with pointed claws.

You run.

You hear the cries of people as you sprint past, the howls of the neighbouring pack of were’s as one of their own is pulled under and the rest of them follow, unable to leave their own behind.

The road is blockaded, and a fire has started somewhere on your left. You jag down an alley, you know these roads, and you know Aunt Bruna should be here.

You don’t know what else to do.

“Bruna!! Auntie Bruna!!!!” You yell as you get close. The shadows rise from the ground, as if they can sense your fear. You dodge around, but there always seems to be another to block your path, and suddenly you’re cornered with nowhere to go.

One leaps at you, bowling you over. Your face burns, and you scream.

And then the impossible weight of the shadow is lifted, and you hear a roar so familiar you could cry again from sheer relief.

“Bruna!” You cry. She swipes at the shadows, though several duck into nothing to avoid her impressive handspan. She barely spares you a glance, the bear of a woman keeping her bulk between you and the monsters.

“Auntie come on, let’s go!” You tug at the tattered ends her dress.

“Right. Let’s go. Head for the shipyard.” Bruna cant run as fast as you, but she’s more effective at fighting off assailants than you are. You’re both panting and out of breath, but you think you can see the lights of the shipyard getting close.

You turn a corner, and for a moment you think you’ve stepped off the edge of the world.

The monsters coat the very ground, teeming and twitching. The crawl across the walls and more appear from nothing at all.

You’ve just realized there’s no way you can get past them when they notice you, and seemingly as one they surge forward. You’d run ahead, and Bruna isn’t close enough to keep you from being dragged under once more. She gives a roar, something as terrifying as it was an indicator of how scared she herself was, and throws herself into the fray.

Bruna is not young anymore, but when she manages to pick you up and fling you, you very nearly clear the teeming mass of monsters entirely, bouncing and skidding to a stop some distance away. She roars again, drawing the creatures to her.

“Run, cub! Run! Old auntie bruna has one last hurrah in her! Come get me!” She challenges. She snarls. You drag yourself up, head spinning, ignoring skinned limbs and a sprained wrist. You get up. You run.

Her roars echo in your ears long after they’ve faded away to nothing.

You continue towards the shipyard. You don’t know what else to do.

It’s empty of people, and you can see the shadows welling at the edges of the bright landing pad lights. There are ships scattered around but you don’t know how to drive any of them. You’re just considering trying your luck anyway in desperation when a small hand grabs yours.

You startle, a small brown haired girl no more than eight has appeared from seemingly nowhere and is tugging at your arm insistently.

“Cmon! Come on, they’re gonna leave!!” She cries, and you follow her. Across the yard you now see a ship, it’s lights on and the engines already warming up. The loading ramp is down and there’s a boy on the ramp, scanning the yard agitatedly. He sees you both and gives a shout into the ship.

“Wait! Wait, it’s Aerith!”

The engines continue to flare, and you run faster. There are monsters on the edge of your vision, one crawls its way up the frontside of the ship. The ship groans as pieces start to disengage and the engines wind up.

You don’t waste your breath trying to call out. You’re so close. You practically toss the little girl onto the rising platform and skid ungracefully into it yourself, dark claws scratching at your heels. The ramp closes fully and the boy shouts.

“They’re in!”

You pull yourself up onto skinned elbows, only to be jostled onto your side again as the ship starts to move. The little girl has stumbled over to a child in the corner who can’t be more than four and hugs her tightly. The toddler cries. The ship jolts again. You hear cursing from the front.

“Get off! My goddam! Ship!”

The boy is clutching a sidebar so tightly his knuckles have turned white. You reach out, and the ship lurches again, knocking you into him. The toddler screams.

You and Aerith lock eyes from far sides of the small ship. She’s scared, you can tell, but she nods, and then wedges herself into a corner, holding the little one tightly, burying her face into her hair. The floor and walls rumble violently. You don’t know if that’s normal. You wrap your arms around the boy and hope for the best.

It feels like forever. Every rumble and quake. The ship gives makes you think the whole thing is going to fall apart. The pilot doesn’t say much, aside a constant slew of curses as he fights the controls. He shouts.

“Hold on!”

Everything goes dark.

——

“Shit, shit, shit, goddamit, c’mon kid, wake up.” You blearily open your eyes. There’s a man standing above you, about the same age as your parents (no don’t think about it, don’t think about it don’t), with short blond hair and a square jaw. He sighs with apparent relief as you come to.

“Thank fuckin stars kid.” He spares no more time with you though, moving down to the boy you’d been curled around. He has his arms wrapped around his head and refuses to move, but otherwise he seems okay. You glance around and find Aerith, who seems to have gained a small cut on her forehead but still sits upright and alert, still wrapped around the youngest child, who sniffles quietly.

You get up, slightly woozy.

“You okay?” You ask Aerith. She nods.

“I’m fine. You hit your head though. You should tell Cid.”

Cid must be the man who piloted.

“He can probably assume.” You deflect. The boy is still curled on the floor, and Cid is trying to get him up. There are several bitten back swears and an aborted attempt at physically moving him, and it gives you the impression that Cid doesn’t deal with kids much.

You leave the ship.

——

It’s a place called Traverse Town.

The monsters are here too.

The five of you hole up in the safest place you can find, and Cid immediately puts all of you into self defence and fighting routines.

“Don’t fight ‘em if you can run, but you kids shouldn’t be totally defenceless if you get cornered.” He cautions. And then you spend the next hour trying to throw and being thrown in turn.

You hate it.

Yuffie spends the first full week screaming. None of you sleep much. At least one person is always awake keeping watch. It’s usually you or Cid. The boy, Squall, tries to take on more than he should. You end up bundling him back to bed a few times.

You find other people. They come and they go, but your group remains. Even the town itself constantly shifts, buildings appear and disappear overnight, especially outside the first district. Cid figures out the best places that much needed supplies tend to appear. He opens a shop. You both figure out how to rig a generator and keep the lights on. The monsters stay on the edges of a lit area. Usually.

You learn the monsters are called heartless.

Other things spring up around Cids shop. It’s all temporary, as are the people manning them, but usually if one persons space opens up, someone else will fill it soon enough. Your group stays, becomes the cornerstone of the fragile and constantly shifting community.

Aerith shows an innate talent in magic, specifically healing magic. All of you start keeping an eye out for books and resources to help her.

There are other survivors from the Garden. Other kids. Cloud and Tifa are absorbed into your group quickly. A girl named Rinoa stays for a while, but eventually just.. Vanishes. You don’t know what happened to her. Squall never quite gives up looking for her.

Sometimes people leave. Sometimes they’re taken by the heartless.

Two months in, you watch the storm clouds roll in, feel the static lift the hairs on your arms, and have an idea.

There’s a book about wild magic among the tomes that were gathered for Aerith. You decide it’s words are enough.

They aren’t.

It’s another six months, your scars healed and branching erratically across your skin, before you try again, and succeed.

Cid doesn’t say anything, but he fusses more than usual.

You can’t summon the lightning on command, but you have learned how to tell it where to go. You push your abilities, creating your own as much as drawing from the book. You feel powerful for the first time since home fel-

You feel powerful. It doesn’t chase the darkness in your heart away.

Yuffie gets kidnapped.

You get her back.

You’re nightmares take on a whole new tone. The shadows in your heart seethe, and for one terrifying moment, you leave the house, and just… wait.

Cid finds you before the heartless do. You’re eventually grateful for it.

Cid keeps you under constant watch for a week. You promise you won’t try again. You’re not sure if you believe yourself any more than he believes you.

You can see the way he’s floundering, taking care of five kids and a suicidal teenager. You pick yourself up, and tell yourself you will deal with your issues later. Cid needs you. The kids need you.

You ignore the voice in the back of your head that says they don’t. That you don’t deserve this. That anyone else should be here instead of you. That asks why you’re here instead of your family.

The kids get older. Yuffie calls you her favourite big sibling after you retrieve her from some impossibly high rooftop, and it catches on from there. You’re all her favourite siblings, except when you’re the Worst Siblings Ever, of course.

Time goes on, the knot in your heart eases, despite the constant threat of shadows outside. You learn to talk about the darkness in your heart, and it eases more. You and your new siblings lean on each other, and you learn to listen to them too.

Squall takes up a gunblade. Yuffie starts training with shuriken. Aerith refines her magic. You work with the lightning.

Tifa vanishes. Cloud leaves.

You all carve a place out in this town. It’s not necessarily safe, and probably never will be, but there are small spaces the heartless can’t get in. Squall and Cid set up a perimeter patrol. The spaces get wider. It’s not safe, but it’s as close as it can.

You feel aimless. Squall patrols. Aerith heals. Cid has the store. Yuffie’s young enough she mostly just does whatever she wants. Or maybe that’s just Yuffie. What have you got?

It’s been four years since you arrived here. You need something else beyond simple survival.

The remnants of an old bar pop up on the edges of the second district. It’s even mostly stocked. The bar has a solid, utilitarian feel and look. You think of Aunt Bruna for the first time in years, and then set up shop,

Squall finds a book about mixing drinks and brings it to you. You don’t have most of the ingredients, and most people aren’t there for anything fancy anyway, but the gift makes you tear up regardless. You study it late at night. Someday you’ll be able to make the fancy, fruity drinks, you decide. You ignore the voice that tells you you’re never going to leave this place, that this awful, monster filled place is your home now. You clutch the book like a lifeline.

You will get out of here someday.

You will.

You and your family.

You have to.

**Author's Note:**

> They do


End file.
